IDA- The Costa Rican race to the bottom

While Costa Rica continues arguing over the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, the central government sets up the stage for the treaty –a treaty that they insist will take Costa Rica up the ladder of development… unfortunately nobody knows yet where the ladder goes, or who builds the steps. The government is considering closing one of the last institutions supposedly helping Costa Rica farmers, the Institute for Agrarian Development (IDA- Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario).
The institute has not had any guidance or attention from the government from the past fifteen years, and now corruption scandals and reckless mismanagement has come to the public scrutiny. The government response, instead of addressing the problem and trying to correct the work of the institute, threatens to demolish one of the last institutions supposedly helping shape rural development. This comes in a time when agriculture is perceived as the odd child of the development agenda, a time when the few support mechanisms promote export crops over the very basic food for the poor.
The original mandate of IDA was to support small farmers with land, credits, and other programs. Although the institute has been terribly job, closing the institute will leave the needs of the rural poor up the air.
This is not the first time food supply is exchanged for money crops- the exchange of maize and beans for exotic ferns and frozen vegetables that Costa Ricans cannot afford. The National Production Center (CNP) and the Ministry of Agriculture have disappeared in the last decade. The Center was never replaced, and the Ministry was replaced with the Ministry of Production- which pays lip attention to agriculture.
With this in mind, Costa Rica continues to define its vision of progress. Selling its coast to foreign investors to make fishermen become construction workes –like its the reality in the Pacific coast of Guanacaste-, and pushing farmers out of the land to… to do whatever they can keep their families alive in the shadows of the informal economy.
Costa Rica, PURA VIDA!!